


Shore

by anactoria



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoria/pseuds/anactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They make for the coast.</p><p>(Post-apocalyptic comment!fic for the prompt, Dawn/Illyria, sole survivors.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Written for brutti_ma_buoni's Ragnarok comment meme on LJ. Unbetaed.

They make for the coast.

Sometimes, Dawn trails behind, the size of the emptiness all around them stopping her dead. She sees the lives left in dust in the shells of towns; the barrenness of fields that no-one will ever plant again; hears the absence of birdsong in the morning. 

Other times, it's Illyria who straggles. Her gaze doesn't focus on anything, as far as Dawn can tell, and Dawn... probably doesn't want to know what she's seeing.

They reach out for each other in the night, and maybe it starts out being about body heat or just knowing someone's there, but it always ends up punishing. Dawn isn't dumb; she works out, eventually, that she's trying to get some human reaction instead of that insect impassivity, some clue as to why this... whatever-she-is... sticks with her.

And, yeah, she's kind of mad. _Why aren't you human?_ she asks, with fingernails and teeth. _Why aren't you Buffy, Xander, Willow, Faith?_

At the shore, Illyria leaves her alone for the longest time. She stares out at the ocean and thinks about just continuing to walk. It's hard to know why she doesn't.

She startles when she hears that voice behind her, low and inflectionless, like always. 

"I do not wish you to drown," Illyria tells her. Just that. Dawn glances up the beach behind them and sees just the one line of footprints in the sand; Illyria's steps matched painstakingly up with her own. Pushes down the echo she hears in her head, the encouragement Tara or Willow or Xander would have offered.

She looks back at the sea. It's vast, alien, indifferent, and somehow there she was, thinking of it like salvation anyway. 

No point in resenting it for not being the sun.

"Okay," she says, eyes still ahead. And then she turns to face the blue.


End file.
